Wednesday, January 02, 2013

Art Shortage

My sister and her husband are both artists. Every time I visit their apartment in Chicago--which houses, I'd say, hundreds of paintings, photographs, etchings, linocuts, sculptures, collages, drawings, ceramics, assemblages, etc., I just wander around as if I'm in a museum. Even their kitchen counter is a work of art--a mosaic they made themselves. My house suffers from an acute art shortage by comparison. There are blank walls!!! We've been living in this house for 11 years--what is up with that? Even though I'm often on the lookout for works of art that speak to me, I have trouble making up my mind to buy something, even though Portland is full of artists who sell their work at very attractive prices.

One year, I resolved to buy one piece of art by a local artist each month. It worked out pretty well. I don't regret anything I bought (certainly not the "Gargle Duet print; every time I look at it I smile) and as a bonus it was nice to feel like I was supporting local art and artists in a very small way. I may try something like that again this year.

Also, it dawned on me that I could, in fact, display a bit of my own "art." Art is in quotation marks because what I have in mind to do is sift through the thousands of digital photos I've taken over the past 6 or 7 years and choose a few to (gulp) send to Walgreens (or similar) and have printed. Put them in a frame and they're art, right? Of course, they are! It's just that I doesn't seem like I expended a great deal of effort to take those photos or that I have any extraordinary aptitude or talent as a photographer, so calling them art seems a smidge presumptuous.

However, there are many photos I took that I quite like, so why not spend $2.99 a piece to get a few of them printed, get hold of some frames (or make some [I made the "Gargle Duet" frame--it was fun!]), and slap them on some of those blank walls? Art shortage partially addressed!

1 Comments:

Totally. You can also do a triptych or groupings of photos that tell a story if you don't think one on its own does it for you. Or crop them interestingly. Also, don't think I haven't noticed this is Post #2 this year. I'm holding my breath!